Thumbnail cropping doesn't stick

einat

I put a lot of thought into my thumbnail crops, but they just don't stick. Sometimes it looks fine when I'm logged in, but awful when I'm not. Sometimes it looks just as bad when I am logged in. I noticed this a few months ago and fixed it throughout all the galleries, and just found out that it's all awkward, again.

What's going wrong here?

This is my site: www.einatix.com
Most galleries' styles are "smugmug" (all galleries under "travel" apart from Krakow, all "nature", "after dark", art", "people", "architecture" and "miscellaneous")

Thanks for any help (-:

leftquark

How are you selecting the Thumbnail crops? Are you using the "Crop Thumbnail" tool?

einat

Yes, I do, the 1:1 ratio.
I've also emailed support, and Lindy is already trying to look into it, though her shift has just ended.
So if you've come across this problem in the past or if you have the solution at hand, then it's great.
But I don't think it's I have to occupy 2 different people on it, it seems unfair if I do.

Allen

A couple hours ago I cropped 8 photos in a gallery 1x1. In just a few minutes they all were cropped.
Looking now every one has lost its crop. Never logged out.

einat

Is Smugmug working on fixing the bug?

David_S85

When I first spotted this thread, I re-cropped many of my gallery thumbs (1x1's) and all have stayed that way. Just did some more, and all still good (in Chrome). Might be limited to certain browsers or OS's.

einat

I use chrome and I have also observed the problem on IE11. Mindy from SM tried with firefox and verified the problem there too.

David_S85

Old Mac OS and older Chrome browser, in my case.

Allen

Using FF v65 cropped 4 thumbs to 1x1 with some zoom in each of two galleries an hour ago.
Just looked and all the crops have reverted to original ratio.

Allen

Just noticed, the "edit" is missing from posts.

Allen

I have three posts in this thread and all are listed as post "9476". Did this software stop counting?

Allen

I guess the "posts" all increment on refresh. There is no "edit delete" posts button or I would delete my last two posts.

Allen

Just checked past galleries and have lost 14 years of cropped photos.

einat

Hi Allen,
The bad new is, as Mindy from SM wrote to me a few days ago:
"There's not a way to recover or rescue a thumbnail crop"
The cropping info is just gone.

And the even worse news is that I have a feeling they're not looking into it, because my last email went un-answered, I wrote to Lindy who picked up the correspondence after Mindy, and then got this answer from Heather:
"I read your email thread with Lindy and we do not have any updates about the crop issue at this time."

I'm not sure if it means they're working on it but no news yet or that they haven't started digging into it. But the silence on their part is not very promising.

Thing is, it's a feature I loved, payed for (am paying for) and have spent a lot of time on. It seems that it has not been working for months, and I am surprised that it has gone unnoticed.

Allen

Found an old screen shot of the thumbs from 10/2018. It shows how all the crops are lost today.

This cancels 1000's of hours of my work as I cropped many photos since 2005.
I've probably cropped between 50,000 and 80,000 photos.

Allen

With their system all images are assigned version numbers. Don't remember what they use but something like this. -1-Ti.jpg, -2-Ti.jpg. etc.
So they could search for latest version of each thumb and repopulate all thumbs with their latest versions.

The 1st thumb above has this link. Notice the -1-Ti.jpg. Any change to that thumb would have a -2-Ti.jpg
https: //photos.smugmug.com/Birds/2015-Birding/Birding-2015-January/2015-01-03-Ivory-Gull/i-864t9vs/1/4166d853/Ti/IMG_5358_7D2-1-Ti.jpg

Looks like they change the photo version and ID with ever update.
/0/3c625a1f/ - /1/747b2173/ - /3/d6b2a317/
They could search on the photo file number string "IMG_5358_7D2" and find latest thumb.

@einat said:
Hi Allen,
The bad new is, as Mindy from SM wrote to me a few days ago:
"There's not a way to recover or rescue a thumbnail crop"
The cropping info is just gone.
.....

Allen

This is what Smug refuses to fix. Now without cropping working we're stuck with heads cut off on thumbs.

Have to look back thru 14 years of photos to fix these even if there was a way.

einat

I changed all my galleries' styles from "classic smugmug" to collage landscape. Of course this doesn't solve anything, but it avoids the problem.

Allen

Hey Smugmug! Are you just going to hide this problem? I've lost 14 years of work.
Every version of every photo including thumbs have unique image ID's and are saved in your archives.
I would imagine the data could be search for every Th and Ti and the latest versions brought back.

How about at least a comment on fixing the current problem of cropping not working?

leftquark

Allen, we have an amazing set of Support Heroes who would love to look into issues and bug requests if you reach out to them via our help tools. I try to monitor DGrin as best as I can but with hundreds of threads getting tens of comments a day, it’s hard for me to track each of these. You can always direct message me if you’re looking to get attention on an issue.

Luckily someone reached out to the Heroes and we verified the issue and have created a bug ticket in our system. The engineering team has some big milestones that they’re working towards and won’t be able to get to this right away.

einat

Hi Aaron,
This:

@leftquark said:
Luckily someone reached out to the Heroes and we verified the issue and have created a bug ticket in our system. The engineering team has some big milestones that they’re working towards and won’t be able to get to this right away.

Is nice 'news' - as in "something new". Because, as I've written a week ago:

@einat said:
... my last email went un-answered, I wrote to Lindy who picked up the correspondence after Mindy, and then got this answer from Heather:
"I read your email thread with Lindy and we do not have any updates about the crop issue at this time."

I'm not sure if it means they're working on it but no news yet or that they haven't started digging into it. But the silence on their part is not very promising.

I did not get a straight answer until your post. at least now I know it is "registered".
Since I have never actually reported a bug , I don't know how it works: how would I know when it is fixed so I can re-crop everything?

Still, I am surprised that this bug has not surfaced earlier. I have barely updated my site for a long time, then noticed the bug a few months ago, then fixed ALL crops, and then noticed it again a few weeks ago.

leftquark

@einat said:
Since I have never actually reported a bug , I don't know how it works: how would I know when it is fixed so I can re-crop everything?

Lindy filed the bug, potentially after your email with her. We keep track of all the customers impacted (based on who writes in) and when we close the bug ticket, the heroes then reach out to all of you to let you know its been fixed.

einat

@leftquark said:
We keep track of all the customers impacted (based on who writes in) and when we close the bug ticket, the heroes then reach out to all of you to let you know its been fixed.

Thanks, Aaron

Allen

This photo thumbnail was cropped again yesterday. Over night, after 1:01am central time, it was reverted back to the original.
https://www.photosbyat.com/Birds/Missouri-Bird-Photos-H-Z/i-n72HZ8H

There has to be an event caused this over night. Please research this.
Thanks

leftquark

Yep - the engineering team has identified that there's a process running that tries to identify photos in-need of repair which is picking these photos up incorrectly as needing repair. When they do, the crop get lost.

I'd recommend not using the tool at the moment.

einat

@leftquark said:
I'd recommend not using the tool at the moment.

"The moment"?
I have reported this bug in January!
And as I have mentioned from the beginning, it was "bugging" even a few months earlier.

Has anyone actually tried to find out what's causing it?
Has anyone actually tried to fix it?

Allen

@leftquark said:
Yep - the engineering team has identified that there's a process running that tries to identify photos in-need of repair which is picking these photos up incorrectly as needing repair. When they do, the crop get lost.

I'd recommend not using the tool at the moment.

I'll be glad to wait many moments, it's been a long wait already. Let's hope there's an easy solution.
Thanks

einat

Besides what I wrote earlier...

@leftquark said:
there's a process running that tries to identify photos in-need of repair...

???
What "needs repair" and in which photos?
All of my photos "needed repair"? (Because all of my crops were lost! (most of my galleries were in "Classic Style", and I always customized the crop. Now they're all in collage style to avoid the messed up crops).
As I see it, none of my photos seemed to need repair, as they are all there, visible, with nothing that seemed wrong with them, except from the crop itself that was lost.
And if a photo is identified as needing repair, I believe there is a better way of "notifying" us than simply messing up with the crops in hope of us noticing it.

So this business of a "process that identifies photos in need of repair and loses their crop", doesn't make any sense.

leftquark

The engineering team has identified what was causing the issue but since we're removing the tool (it's not included in the new Lightbox) I had directed them not to repair it. A new tool will replace it in the future, though that could be some time away.

I'd like the new tool to allow you to choose the interest point in a photo, rather than specifically cropping it. That way any time the photo is displayed, in any aspect ratio, it'll properly align where you want it. It'd be much more useful than the Crop tool.
(Allen, I know you want to be able to zoom as part of this tool. Your feature request has been logged!)

Imagine you switch your Feature Images to be displayed as 3:2 instead of 1:1. With this new tool they'd magically still be properly aligned, as would any Cover Photos, etc.

einat

@leftquark said:
A new tool ...

Although the new tool sounds cool, I do wonder why this is the answer that I get after over six months!
I reported the bug in January, and it seems that it was there un-noticed for a long time before that.
I had a tedious correspondence with the support staff, and now, NOW, now you're saying it will not be fixed? And it's only because Allen brought the issue back up again?

I mean, it was registered as a bug, it lay there being happily registered, hibernating for 6 months, and than ...whammmm.... in one day what's causing it is identified and its fate is doomed to be removed.
As customer relations go, this is very disappointing.

And BTW, the way you describe the new tool, however cool it may be, it does not seem accurate enough.

leftquark

I try my hardest to communicate with the Support Heroes but I'll take the responsibility here and admit I could have done a better job communicating with them. We investigated 6 months ago when you and Allen brought this up. When it was first reported months ago we were on this same path of removing the tool in the new Lightbox and I had decided not to fix it then. I thought we were much closer to launching the new Lightbox -- in hindsight we should have removed the broken tool long ago. Next time I'll make sure we do a better job of communicating with everyone -- with all of you here, and with the heroes so they could re-iterate the same.